. >> host: does president obama and maliki talk? >> guest: rarely come and what president obama basically delegated the iraq file to vice president joe biden, and vice president biden -- >> host: when did that happen? >> guest: it happened in 2009. very early -- well, maybe even, well yeah, 2009 in the first part. so, he had the lead for the iraq policy. and a lot of this is reflected in my book. but there was a debate about how much to get involved behind maliki, and the investor at the time, ambassador chris hill pretty much thought that maliki was the man we had to work with and that his rival didn't really have a good chance of making it to the prime minister post not withstanding the fact that his party won more seats than maliki's party but there was a debate in the government where vice president joe biden came down and was in favor of working with maliki as there would be a necessary evil or just the man that was going to be there. so, when things really get hot or when there is a crisis, vice president wyden calls and he ca